Clinton and Trump on the home straight in US election

Furiously campaigning to the last, Hillary Clinton has tried to emerge from the cloud of suspicion that has followed her campaign and close her historic bid with a call for unity and hope. Donald Trump vowed not to make it easy.
Hillary Clinton puts on a positive face on last day of US campaign. Picture: Getty ImagesHillary Clinton puts on a positive face on last day of US campaign. Picture: Getty Images
Hillary Clinton puts on a positive face on last day of US campaign. Picture: Getty Images

Both candidates set exhausting schedules for the final day of a campaign that has wearied an entire nation, each visiting four states in appearances stretching deep into the night.

Trump tried to keep the focus on Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state.

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Hours after the FBI announced on Sunday that it had again cleared her, Trump and his campaign questioned the bureau’s decision anew. The campaign suggested the latest rapid review of a Clinton aide’s e-mails could not have been thorough.

“They’ve bungled the investigation from the beginning,” Trump spokesman Jason Miller said on CNN,calling for the FBI to release the newly discovered e-mails belonging to aide Huma Adebin.

The comments were a reminder that FBI director James Comey’s news, delivered in a letter to Congress on Sunday, was a doubled-edged sword for Clinton. While it vindicated her claims that the e-mails would not yield new evidence, it ensured that the final hours of her campaign would be spent talking about a subject that has damaged her credibility.

Clinton’s campaign said she would not be discussing the news as she campaigns in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan. She instead shifted to message of reconciliation after a rough campaign.

“I think I have some work to do to bring the country together,” she told reporters as she boarded her plane for her last battleground tour. “I really do want to be the president for everybody.”

After seeing her solid lead shrink as her e-mail woes resurfaced, Clinton appears to have retained an edge in the final days. Her campaign says it’s been buoyed by strong turnout in states that vote early, including Nevada and Florida. Trump must win nearly all of the roughly dozen battleground states up for grabs to take the White House.

More than 42.4 million people have already voted.

The Clinton campaign focused on the places that don’t allow early voting. Besides her own rallies, high-wattage allies fanned out across the country, including President Barack Obama, at a get-out-the-vote event in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a state that has been showered by candidate attention in recent days.

Clinton was to campaign in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as well as Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Raleigh, North Carolina.

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It was a round-the-clock schedule that included a major rally in Philadelphia with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, along with rock stars Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi.

Trump, too, planned to keep up the breakneck campaign pace going. Last night he was going to Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.

After voting in New York this morning, Trump was expected to return to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and New Hampshire later in the day as he took his campaign – and his criticism of a “rigged” American economic and political system – to Democratic strongholds.

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